Iran stressed on Monday it has not sought and will never seek nuclear weapons, saying it will pull out of additional protocol in late February in case the other parties to the 2015 nuclear deal do not fulfill their commitments.
In a weekly presser, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Tehran is prepared to further scale back commitments.
“In case the other side does not its commitments by the first week of Esfand [12th Iranian month that starts Feb. 19), the Iranian government will be obliged to suspend the implementation of the NPT’s Additional Protocol.”
“However, Iran will remain a member of the NPT Safeguards Agreement, but will only withdraw from the Additional Protocol,” he noted, as quoted by Mehr news agency.
“We have no option but to respect the law. It does not mean ending all inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog,” Khatibzadeh said, referring to an Iranian law that obliges the government to harden its nuclear stance.
The spokesman underlined that Iran will continue its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stressing that “all these [counteractive] measures will be reversible provided the other parties will commit to their obligations.”
Referring to a recent statement by the European trio – The UK, Germany and France – Khatibzadeh said, “The three European countries have an easy way… And that is to end the tensions and return to their [JCPAO] commitments.”
He stressed that “this way is much easier than the current path the Europeans have taken; they should know that JCPOA is in a critical situation and these tensions do not help at all.”
When asked about Iran’s intelligence minister’s comments last week that persistent Western pressure could push Tehran to seek nuclear weapons, Khatibzadeh said that “Iran has not sought and will never seek nuclear weapons.”
Source: Iranian media
